


Chasing Ghosts

by facelessoldwoman



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Implied Violence, hail HYDRA, so much amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:23:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1539263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facelessoldwoman/pseuds/facelessoldwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter Soldier ficlettes inspired by things that I needed to be in the movie. They are all more or less related, sorta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What a Piece of Work is Man

**Author's Note:**

> Don't read this if you haven't seen Winter Soldier (obviously)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who is the best person to sneak up on a ticking time bomb?

He walks into another nondescript motel room reserved under a pseudonym. A man who does not exist is just passing through. For years he wrought havoc through history with a single-minded obsession, but with every mission he knew less and less about who he was or about the consequences of his actions; now the more that he learns about who he used to be- the less he knows about the purpose that should guide his life.

He is guided by his will to survive. He may not have a mission but he still has his instincts. He stops in the doorway of the motel room, keys in hand. The lights are off but even in this room he has never seen before he can feel that things are not as they should be.

There is a click as she pulls the safety off her revolver and steps into the lonely beams of light. She is wearing black civilian clothing, what might be called evening wear in more refined circles: high heels, a dress with shoulder straps draped down her long muscular arms. Her lips are blood red. Her hair is the color of a dying fire and it falls down to her waist in ruffled waves. Her revolver is aimed at his heart.

She is beautiful and deadly.

“Hello Soldier,” she purrs. Her finger does not rest alongside the barrel as soldiers and officers learn to do to avoid discharging their weapons accidentally. She keeps her finger pressed against the trigger. The slightest pressure would set off an explosive reaction.

“ _It took me so long to find you, they said you were a ghost_ ,” she is so close to him now. The barrel of the gun rests at the base of his skull, a very compromising position indeed. She whispers in his ear, “ _They said that I was chasing a ghost_.”

“You were chasing death,” he said, his voice low and patient, “You found him.”

“I didn’t come for the legend, I came for the man,” she said. She closed the door behind them and encasing the room in quiet darkness.

“There’s not much left of him,” he said, dropping heavily into the nearest chair. His head spun with half-hearted surges of adrenaline, little spasms rattled along the fine motor reflexes in his metallic fingers. His ill-fitting clothes were stolen from another man; his stomach pained from hunger; a dull ache pounded behind his temples.

“You didn’t kill me last time,” she said.

“I … I don’t remember,” he said, his brain swirled with the faces of hundreds of nameless victims and bystanders. Nowhere in this storm of repressed memory can he find this girl, but most everything from his other life is lost to him now. She may have been very young when he saw her last. Nothing is for certain.

“Who are you?” he asks, finally.

“It is a loaded question,” she laughs, “I am who I need to be to survive.”

“Then what brought you to me?” he asked.

“An old friend of yours,” she said.

“Steve?” he asked.

“He only wants to help,” she said.

“He can’t help me,” he said.

There was a thud on the night stand as she set the gun down. He couldn’t see her but he could feel her coming closer to him- he could feel the ground shift beneath her feet, he could hear her breathing. She stood by him and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Do not make the mistake that you have to go through this alone.”

“What would you know,” he said.

“I read your file,” she said, “I can give you a copy, though I understand if you would rather not see it. That man wasn’t you.”

“I did those things, I can’t erase them,” he said.

“Do not blame yourself for the malice and design of other men,” she said, “I know what it is like to be unmade.”

“How did you escape?” he asked.

“Someone helped me, someone I now call a friend,” she said.

 “Is that who you are, a friend?” he asked. He held her hand in his. She felt so soft against his scarred and calloused skin.

“If that’s who you need me to be,” she whispered.

“You are a woman of a thousand faces,” he kissed her hand gently and then let it go, “I won’t ask you to wear another mask for me. You can call me James.”

She held her hand to her heart for a moment and said, “Nice to meet you James, my name is Natasha.”  

 


	2. A Little too Late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I really needed a scene in Winter Soldier where Steve told Tony about Howard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, don't read this if you didn't watch Winter Soldier

“Tony, talk to me, please,” Steve says.

“I guess I should be grateful, huh?” Tony asks, not looking up. The whiskey swills around in the glass cradled in his hands.

“What?” Steve asks.

“As if this is supposed to change anything,” Tony says, emptying the glass in one swig, “A little closure maybe? It’s only twenty years too late.”

“I just wanted you to know,” Steve said, backing away slightly.

“What did you want, Steve? You think I wanted to dredge up all this emotional garbage again?” Tony said, “You want to give me another reminder of all the people I can’t trust!?”

Tony hurled his glass at the furthest wall; glass and ice exploding on concrete in one loud crash. Steve didn’t flinch, he just stepped forward and grabbed Tony’s arm before he could throw anything else.

“Tony, stop,” Steve said.

“I helped those bastards for years!” Tony yelled, “I helped them design their goddamn flying murder machines!”

“I trusted them too,” Steve said. He couldn’t look at Tony now, not when his eyes were on fire and he looked so much like Howard, “But you can’t blame yourself for doing what you thought was right. You didn’t know what was going on.”

“I can’t afford to live in the dark, Steve,” Tony said, “When ordinary people fuck up they might get fired- when I fuck up other people die.”

Steve didn’t know what to expect when he sought Tony out but this definitely wasn’t it. Steve let go of Tony’s arm and Tony backed up against the wall, looking around the room like he was cornered.

“I thought my eyes were open to this backstabbing bullshit,” Tony said, he pressed his hands into his eyes and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. He looked up at Steve and his eyes were red, “I thought my days of selling weapons were over when Obie died, I can’t believe I was so blind.”

“Who’s Obie?”

“Just another person who tried to kill me, not exactly a small club these days,” Tony said, “Old business partner of my father. After I came back from Afghanistan I shut down the weapons manufacturing part of my company, which was pretty much all of the company at that point. Obadiah was selling under the table though. He was running an entire war right under my goddamn nose.”

“I never heard about this,” Steve said.

“Of course you didn’t, it was way too incendiary to be made public,” Tony said, “You’ll never guess who showed up after the shooting stopped to help sweep everything under the rug.”

Steve lowered himself down beside Tony and heaved a hard sigh, “SHIELD.”

“The thing is, after it was all over… I was certain that it was him all those years ago,” Tony was slouched on the ground, his eyes staring intensely at sights that Steve couldn’t see, “After all, Obadiah took over the company when dad died. And then once he got all the good ideas he could wring out of me he signed me up for an accident of my own.”

“Afghanistan?” Steve said, the topic had only ever been danced around between them, even Natasha didn’t talk about it (though Steve suspected she knew), “Was that when you built the suit?”

Tony laughed, “I guess I had one more surprise up my sleeve.”

“You never really stop surprising me,” Steve said, “And I thought I had seen it all.”

 


	3. Respect Your Elders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam doesn't get enough credit for dropping everything in his life to go galavanting around with Steve and Natasha.

Steve and Sam sit outside the motel waiting on Natasha’s word. Natasha had insisted on going in alone and they in turn had insisted on waiting outside as backup. Over an hour had passed and they still hadn’t heard from her. The sun sank behind the horizon casting long shadows all around.

“Do you want a Gatorade, I’m getting a Gatorade,” Sam says. He hands the binoculars to Steve.

“Seriously,” Steve says, “Right now?”

“I’m thirsty and it’s like a million and a half degrees in this car,” Sam said, opening the door and letting the evening air blow in.

“If he knows we’re watching we’ll scare him off,” Steve said.

“You don’t even know if he’ll be here,” Sam said.

“I have to try,” Steve said, turning his attention to the binoculars.

“Whatever man, I’m getting the blue kind,” Sam said. The door clipped behind him and Steve couldn’t help but lower his binoculars and stare after him. He was indebted to Sam in a way that he could probably never repay. Steve sighed as he stared up at the window of the motel window and waited.

The door opened and closed, Sam nudged Steve in the arm.

“I got you the orange kind,” Sam said. Steve tried to be stern but once he popped open the bottle he realized how thirsty he was. He drank half of it in one swig.

“Thanks Sam,” Steve said.

“Don’t worry man it was only a dollar,” Sam said, “You’re good for it though, right? I mean, I’m sure that you’re rolling in dough with all those Social Security checks. I bet you save a lot going to Early Bird specials and Jello is always cheap and-“

“Yes, haha, I get it, I’m old,” Steve said, rolling his eyes but laughing for the first time in hours.

“Just doing my civic duty, attending to the welfare of the elderly,” Sam said.

“I do appreciate you doing all this, Sam,” Steve said, “I pulled you away from your life, you didn’t have to go along with any of this.”

“I’d like to live in a peaceful world,” Sam said, taking a long drag from his sugary electric blue beverage, “But we don’t. It’s our job to make that world.”

Steve raised his bottle, “I’ll drink to that.”


End file.
